Debt Relief 101 for the College Graduate
The burden of debt weighing on many American families isn’t going away anytime soon, and, it isn’t just limited to families. Sure, a married couple with children trying to make their way toward the American Dream is more likely to be carrying more debt than a young, single person. Between monthly bills, outstanding credit card balances, a mortgage, and a car payment, the young family can find their finances under water pretty quickly. However, these days the debt problem isn’t limited to families. Young people just out of college can also find themselves in a similar debt dilemma. And like the over-leveraged family, their ability to pay off outstanding balances quickly and to keep from going back to the credit well again and again can make all the difference in the world for their financial future. All it takes to pull out of the red quicksand is a little research into various debt relief options available to them and then following through on them.
To put the problem into a little prospective, debtors aged 22-29 carry an average outstanding balance of $16,120, an increase of 10% over the past five years. The biggest culprits adding to the red ink are student loans and everyone’s bugaboo, credit cards. Paying off student loans and credit cards for young people has many obvious benefits and perhaps a hidden one that they don’t think about enough, financial planning for the future; retirement. If you’re shelling out every dime of your paycheck for monthly bills and your loan payments you probably aren’t putting anything into IRA accounts or 401K accounts, which in the long run can cost you dearly. These savings programs allow you to invest your funds tax free and more than likely, your employer will have other saving incentives that they contribute to, which over time can accumulate into a nice nest egg when you’re ready to call it quits. But you can’t start saving until you get control over your outstanding debts.
The first thing you can do is to consolidate your student loans into one balance with one provider and if you do it fairly quickly, you can take advantage of some of the lowest rates that you’re likely to see for some time. Many students that need to borrow funds to pay for college find themselves with a couple of Stafford Loans, as well as loans from private banks. You can lump them all together into one loan at a lower rate and reduce your monthly payments considerably.
Remember to be a good shopper when you’re looking for a lender to carry your student loan balances. You don’t need to keep these loans with the bank or federal agency that gave you the loans in the first place so be sure that you are getting the best deal available when looking for a single, lower interest loans for your student loan debt.
Regarding your credit card balances, ask for a better deal. That’s right, simply call your credit card company and ask them to lower your rate or restructure your payments. They would rather get something than nothing and often there are deals available that you just aren’t aware of unless you call to find out. Your average rate reduction can be as much as taking your 16% credit card down to 10%, and if you’re a college graduate the benefits of that math shouldn’t be hard to figure out.
The other option for digging out from under high interest rate credit cards is to find a new card at a much lower interest rate and then transfer your balances to this card. There can be fees associated with doing this so get out your calculator and make sure that the lower interest rates over the course of time more than make up for the fee to transfer your balances.
The last thing is obvious but bears repeating. Watch your spending habits. If you find that your monthly bills and loans are crushing you financially look for ways to trim spending. Cutting back on times that might seem trivial can add up to a great savings over time and thereby giving you more funds to pare down your debt and then, eventually, to splurge a little again.
To know more about Credit Card Debt please browse Credit Card Debt
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